The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the “alternative interrogation methods” that their captors used to get them to talk.

The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets and that their release — even to the detainees’ own attorneys — “could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage.”

It couldn’t be because they would reveal the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld policy of torture and abuse, would it? I’ve said it before but the possibility that these three men will one day face charges of war crimes is a distinct possibility. Their desperate attempts now to hide what they have done in our name is predictable. If you re-elect them, their abuse of power will only metastasize, as torture always does.” [Andrew Sullivan]

The first video below is a dramatization of a “waterboarding.” Since I have only read descriptions, I cannot verify its accuracy in detail – but it certainly captures the essence of this technique directly authorized by the president, and used by the CIA at the behest of the president and vice-president. The clip lasts a little more than 30 seconds. Most victims apparently do not last that long. If you believe that what you are watching is “severe mental or physical pain,” then it is torture under U.S. law, and the U.N. Treaty. It is undeniably a violation of the Geneva Convention. If it is torture, according to the president himself, then it should stopped. At this moment in history, let us at least look at what is being done by the government and call it by its proper name.

UPDATE: The video described above has been made unavailable at YouTube. In its place, a video against the use of torture from Amnesty International is presented. Broadcast of this video was banned at one time, allegedly due to what was claimed to be its excessively violent nature.

“The video presented below is an actual waterboarding demonstration by a Fox News Television Reporter. It’s important to remember that psychologically, he’s in a very different space than prisoners who have no autonomy, and who are not aware that they can stop this at any time. Even so, his conclusion is inescapable:

“As far as torture goes, at least in this controlled experiment, to me this seemed like a pretty efficient mechanism.”

It is indeed a pretty efficient torture technique that triggers involuntary extreme panic and fear in order to get information – any information – in order to have it stopped. The legal definition of torture is the infliction of “severe mental or physical pain or suffering” to extract information. The reporter essentially cops to “severe mental suffering” at the very least. I am grateful to Fox for not mincing words. This is torture. That a prisoner can survive it with minimal outward signs of physical harm is one of its benefits for torturers, because they can repeat it endlessly until a human being is still alive but reduced to an empty shell. And that is why the Khmer Rouge used it. And the Soviets. And the Nazis. And George W. Bush.”

Update:

On Saturday, March 8, 2008, President Bush announced that he had vetoed legislation that would have banned the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods, such as waterboarding, to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that he said have prevented attacks.

The bill he rejected provides guidelines for intelligence activities and has the interrogation requirement as one provision. It cleared the House in December and the Senate last month. Supporters of the legislation say it would preserve the United States’ ability to collect critical intelligence, while also providing a much-needed boost to country’s moral standing abroad. The bill would have limited CIA interrogators to the 19 techniques allowed for use by military questioners. In 2006, the Army field manual in 2006 banned using methods such as waterboarding or sensory deprivation on uncooperative prisoners.

“President Bush’s veto will be one of the most shameful acts of his presidency,” Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, said in a statement on Friday. “Unless Congress overrides the veto, it will go down in history as a flagrant insult to the rule of law and a serious stain on the good name of America in the eyes of the world.”

“ENHANCED” INTERROGATION

The Origins

In the medieval form of waterboarding, a victim was strapped to a board and tipped back or lowered into a body of water until he or she believed that drowning was imminent. The subject was then removed from the water and revived. If necessary the process was repeated.

Although in a technical sense there are actually several other forms of water-based interrogation, all variants have in common that the victim reliably almost drowns but is rescued or re-animated by his captor just before death occurs. The technique is designed to be both psychological and physical. The psychological effect is inherent in the fact that the victim is given to understand that he shall be killed outright by dint of enforced drowning unless his cooperation as demanded is indeed produced promptly. This perception reinforces the interrogator’s control and gives the victim sound cause to experience mortal fear.

The physical effects are extreme pain and damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation and sometimes broken bones because of the restraints applied to the struggling victim. The psychological effects can be long-lasting.

Modern Waterboarding

The modern practice of waterboarding, characterized in 2005 by former CIA director Porter J. Goss as a “professional interrogation technique“, involves tying the victim to a board with the head lower than the feet so that he or she is unable to move. A piece of cloth is held tightly over the face, and water is poured onto the cloth. Breathing is extremely difficult and the victim will be in fear of imminent death by asphyxiation. However, it is relatively difficult to aspirate a large amount of water since the lungs are higher than the mouth, and the victim is unlikely to actually die if this is done by skilled practitioners. Waterboarding may be used by captors who wish to impose anguish without leaving marks on their victims as evidence. Journalists Brian Ross and Richard Esposito described the CIA‘s waterboarding technique as follows:

The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt. According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda’s toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last over two minutes before begging to confess. “The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.

In the United States, military personnel are taught this technique, ostensibly to demonstrate how to resist enemy interrogations in the event of capture. According to Salon.com, SERE instructors shared their torture techniques with interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. According to the CIA’s own description of the waterboarding torture technique, the prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

Waterboarding has often been described in the media in a “matter-of-fact” manner. In the past, The Washington Post has simply referred to waterboarding as an interrogation measure that “simulates drowning.” But what does waterboarding look like? Below is a photograph taken by Jonah Blank last month at Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The prison is now a museum that documents Khymer Rouge atrocities. Blank, an anthropologist and former Senior Editor of US News & World Report, is the author of the books Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God and Mullahs on the Mainframe. He is a professorial lecturer at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and has taught at Harvard and Georgetown universities

This photo shows one of the actual waterboards used by the Khymer Rouge:

What follows below is a demonstration of a “waterboarding.” It certainly captures the essence of this technique that is now directly authorized by the president, and used by the CIA at the behest of the president and vice-president. If you believe that what you are watching is “severe mental or physical pain,” then it is torture under U.S. law, and the U.N. Treaty. It is undeniably a violation of the Geneva Convention. If it is torture, according to the president himself, then it be should stopped. At this moment in history, let us at least look at what is being done by the government and call it by its proper name.

Solitude emphasizes the value of allowing us to formulate our feelings, thoughts and behaviors away from the influence of others. One seeks solitude, because our personalities are not unlike permeable membranes. When actively involved with mutual interpersonal relatedness, we tend to absorb the feelings, thoughts, moods and opinions of others.

We separate from others to sort through all that we have taken in, to review elements of our social exchanges and to evaluate them. Ultimately, solitude can enable us to reach a sense of internal peace, within which we can attentively listen until we are able to hear our own notes amidst the discordance surrounding us. The essence of productive solitude, as with all privacy, is the achievement of a sense of choice and free will, as well as of personal control.

This is about the clearest, most succinct statement that I have been able to write about my thoughts and feelings with regard to creative solitude, the internal and the external, internal peace, a relational interpersonal perspective and a sense of the potential effect of the opinions of others upon one’s own personality (however, the threads of this perspective have been the embedded subtext of many of my previously published clinical papers and books). In addition, it provides a tight integration of ideas about social interaction, self-evaluation, freedom, choice and self-control. Thinking in this manner does require one to adapt to a new way of reflection.

This adaption can be made smoothly once one begins to participate in consciously (and pre-consciously) co-constructed interpersonal relationships. In terms of this model of a contemporary analytic approach, I participate in ongoing conversations of this kind with the many young people with whom I am engaged in longer-term individual psychotherapy. These types of empathic conversations, I believe, are what energize the collaborative development of a mutually examined new kind of interpersonal relationship, which in turn appears to be a critical mutative factor in group settings.

With regard to the preceding comments, I very deeply hope that you will be able appreciate how this perspective is reflected in the selection of images that makes up The Photographic Essay, which I have created for you: Creative Solitude.

Thanks to all of you very, very much.

The Background Music for Creative Solitude: Marconi Union: “Sleepless”

Like this:

Solitude emphasizes the value of allowing us to formulate our feelings, thoughts and behaviors away from the influence of others. One seeks solitude, because our personalities are not unlike permeable membranes.

When actively involved with mutual interpersonal relatedness, we tend to absorb the feelings, thoughts, moods and opinions of others. We separate from others to sort through all that we have taken in, to review elements of our social exchanges and to evaluate them.

Ultimately, solitude can enable us to reach a sense of internal peace, in which we can attentively listen until we can hear our own notes amidst the discordance surrounding us. The essence of solitude, as with all privacy, is the achievement of a sense of choice and personal control.